Adaptability
by Sailor Comet
Summary: A fluffy tale of Stan and Rosalyn. Contains cursing, het, mentions of yaoi, stupid insults, and possible OOC. It is, after all, fuff with the Hero and Evil King, which really shouldn't happen.


Warnings: Stan+Rosalyn. Yes, it's possible… in a fluffy OOC universe…

I can kind of understand Seto+Jounouchi in YGO fandom now. Kind of. A little.

**Adaptability**

It had taken painters centuries to realize that shadows weren't simply black mixed with the colour of the object they were cast on. Shadows were blue and purple, and sometimes other colours besides, and occasionally multiple colours at the same time.

Rosalyn's shadow had been pink for a long time, and she had almost given up hope of seeing it as any other colour ever again, because even if she defeated Stan then what guarantee did she have that he would cooperate? As stubborn as he was, and as much as he loved to piss other people off, he probably would have rather died than return her shadow to its original state if he thought it was important to her.

It felt a little odd not carrying her parasol around everywhere. It would take a little while to get used to it.

It felt a little odd now to wake up in a bed alone, and ahe was surprised at how quickly it had taken for her to become accustomed to it; she'd been carrying a parasol everywhere for much longer.

---

It's not like they did it on purpose.

It was mostly because while they were fighting, Stan grabbed Rosalyn's parasol and nothing pisses her off more than her shadow showing, so obviously she lunged for him, and then he tripped over his own feet, and by some freak coincidence they landed in a more than suggestive position. And there's not much room for romance in the Hero profession, or the Evil King profession for that matter—at least, not until you've defeated your arch nemesis, and then you save the princess like Ari had, or maybe you return home to your sweetheart who's been waiting and worrying for your life… but neither Stan nor Rosalyn had somebody like that. Admittedly Stan had been flirting with Linda, and hitting on Ari nonstop, but that was all done with now and the only people around were Rosalyn and James, and James just wasn't very appealing (nor was he around near as often as Rosalyn was). So that was that for him, and while Rosalyn wasn't easy to convince, the end result was of course that the next morning they woke up in the same bed with a distinct lack of clothing.

Rosalyn was the first actually awake, and she sat up and rested her arms on her knees, put a hand on her forehead though she had no headache and actually felt quite rested and content—or she would have, had she not been naked in a bed with an Evil King she had sworn to defeat. So truthfully she was very stressed… but her body was rested, and she didn't have a headache. She was just stressed mentally.

"This complicates things," she said. Stan, who had been drifting awake, chose that moment to open his eyes and comment.

"Amazing powers of observation," he smiled languidly, propping himself on an elbow. Rosalyn tried not to look at a very nicely sculpted chest, though Stan wasn't making any effort not to stare at hers.

"Well, what did you think would happen? It's not like we can put this part of our lives in a litte box separate from all the times we try to kill each other, now can we?" she demanded. The hand on her forehead curled into a fist, capturing strands of tangled blond hair.

"We could for a little while," Stan grinned, though his expression became serious after a moment. Rosalyn paused to stare at him; she hadn't thought the self-proclaimed King capable of taking things seriously. "It wouldn't last though. Just try and forget about it—that should be an easy task; I'm sure you can't hold too many thoughts in that miniscule brain of yours. I'll let you go today; most likely I'll kill you by Friday."

A corner of Rosalyn's mouth twitched, though not into a smile. "I wouldn't be calling anything 'little,' if I were you," she sneered, with a nod toward areas that were still beneath the blanket. She slid off the bed and stood, not seeing the outraged expression on Stan's face but knowing him well enough to expect it.

Most of their relationship had been when he hadn't been capable of many different facial expressions, anyway.

A few more insults were exchanged before the two were dressed and left the hotel, going separate ways. It was unspoken that they wouldn't fight that day, despite the glares and taunts that might have been said merely for appearances but were still painful to receive.

Whether or not they slept well that night, neither of them were able to fall asleep without a near-complete replaying of the previous night in their minds.

They didn't encounter each other again until the end of the week, the Friday on which Stan had said he would finally kill the Hero. But his insults weren't said with as much enthusiasm, and though Rosalyn still pointed out that they were stupid insults, she wasn't as quick with her sword as usual.

Still, the two were even more stubborn than mules, Italians, and other stubborn things, and thus the fight progressed right into a standoff. Rosalyn's rapier was unhealthily close to Stan's neck, Stan's hand that wasn't holding off the sword was _on_ Rosalyn's neck, their legs were locked, and the remaining hand—Rosalyn's—was, of course, holding up her parasol.

Simply put, the tension in the air was more than simple homicidal anger, and this time they didn't make it to a hotel.

Thus a relationship that shouldn't ever have been was started, because neither of them was really prone to lying about things that were so obvious even someone like Big Bull could have seen them, or at least, not after a little while, and so the two admitted that there were significant problems with continuing their attempts at each other's lives. It wasn't as though they were going to stop insulting each other like children at every opportunity, and there were some large problems, like the fact that as long as the fragile relationship was still existing, Stan wasn't allowed to go destroying cities.

But the sex was really, really good.

(Although they never cuddled afterward, because that just would have gone against everything they stood for. (As though sleeping with the enemy didn't.))

Still, as Rosalyn had said shortly after they'd acknowledged what they had as a relationship of sorts, it wouldn't last. Stan had agreed with her (the shock!), declaring that he was an Evil King before anything, and if there was something to be destroyed, he would destroy it. Their relationship was no different from anything else in the world that he would rule, and he made it clear. Then Rosalyn was quick to yell that she wouldn't ever let him rule the world, and if nothing else, she would never even consider him as a decent person until her shadow was returned to normal.

At the beginning of the relationship, even they were a little confused about when they were lying and when they weren't.

It didn't last long, and their break-up fight was spectacular, considering their respective combat abilities. Despite Rosalyn's objections to Stan's occupation of Destroying All, between the two of them they leveled a few buildings in Tenel and a good bit of the surrounding forest, and only stopped because Ari was able to kick both their asses while they were set on killing each other.

Rosalyn left the village as soon as she could walk again, heading for the new world that she'd been unable to see yet, too busy with fighting and then her relationship. Stan stayed with Ari for a few days to recover, and didn't call the boy "slave" once, which was how Ari knew something was seriously wrong. Even Marlene was concerned, and although she was a far more agreeable person since coming to live with Ari, her show of worry for the Evil King was rather unusual.

He left after a few days, and Marlene wondered if he would do anything stupid and rash, and although Ari assured her that Stan wasn't that sort of guy and would bounce back soon, he wasn't comfortable seeing Stan walk away—a slow and depressed sort of shuffle, more than a walk, really, and he wasn't going to get anywhere fast at that rate.

---

Rosalyn didn't realize for a little while that her shadow wasn't fluorescent pink anymore, since she was always carrying around the parasol so it wouldn't ever show. But in one of the new cities, on a crowded street, she paused to try and get her bearings and was bumped into rather hard by a passing pedestrian in a rush. She fell ungracefully, and was disappointed since, as a Hero who had stood her own against the true Evil King, she shouldn't have fallen. (But she had been rather out of sorts since the break up, though of course the break up was not the reason, she'd probably just caught a cold around the same time, that was all, and still hadn't completely recovered. It had only been, what, a week ago? It seemed a bit longer than that.)

But, when she fell, her parasol had too, and as she scrambled to grab it, she noticed her shadow. Which was blue-grey on the ground.

Slowly, she let go of the parasol handle. The crowded street faded from perception—there was nobody there but her, and a parasol that she suddenly didn't need anymore, and she almost felt naked not being under the frilly baby-girl pink thing.

"It figures it would take this to get him to fix my shadow," was the bitter thought. But she was still stubborn, and so was he, and the two of them both had no intention of seeking each other out and making up, even after the gesture of apology.

They were really rather similar.

---

Stan discovered there was no fun in trying to conquer the world when the only person standing in his way was his former slave, who had been powerful enough to kick his ass by the time they parted ways, and really didn't even take his quest for ruling the world seriously in the first place. He decided to explore the new world, and maybe he'd find something new there that tickled his fancy, like some noble justice freak to stand up to him, who could actually provide a bit of a challenge before inevitably falling to his great evil power.

Rosalyn discovered that there wasn't much use for a Hero in the new world, and since Stan had been behaving, there wasn't much use for her anywhere, in fact. She decided to go back, maybe to Rashelo—the economic system there looked pretty healthy, what with the tourism, and they would probably have some sort of jobs available.

Several things in this story had been contrived to work, so don't start complaining now.

They met at the border.

Stan, who had been hunched as he trudged along, stood up straight to look at her.

Rosalyn's parasol hand fidgeted for a few moments before settling on her hip.

There was a long moment of silence, as both were stubborn, as has been pointed out twice already to drive it into the reader's head, and neither wanted to be the first to say something. Then Rosalyn figured that, if nothing else, she owed him a thank you, because he'd fixed her shadow after their break up, when he could have left it forever and she'd lost the will to go after him.

"You look better without that stupid parasol."

Rosalyn's eyes were wide not only because he'd beaten her to the first line, but because that had to be the first good thing she could remember him ever saying about her. Probably, if she thought about it, it was also the first good thing that wasn't also a backhanded comment he'd said about anybody except himself. And then, with her wide eyes, she saw that he wasn't quite the same old Stan—he was still cocky as Hell, and sort of dense (but honestly, so was she), and probably still had a fondness for declaring himself purely Evil and destroying shit and using black magic, but there was something new. Something she didn't bother figuring out right then, because there was the matter of where they stood with each other to figure out first.

All Stan really saw was that Rosalyn did look a whole Hell of a lot better without that damn frilly excuse for an umbrella. He couldn't really tell just by looking that she was getting over that whole idealistic "Justice!" thing.

They didn't kiss and embrace right then and there, and they immediately ran into a new problem since Stan wanted to explore new places and Rosalyn wanted to go back to what she knew.

They didn't live happily ever after, either, because Stan was always coming up with new, creative (but often utterly lacking in logic) insults, and then Rosalyn simply could not let him have the last say so she had to have a witty (but sometimes also lacking in logic) retort, and also because sometimes Rosalyn did have a relapse into that idealistic "Justice!" thing at the same time Stan had a relapse into his desire to rule the world and make all its citizens bow to him.

But sometimes he said that he would conquer the world and give it to Rosalyn as a birthday gift, and sometimes she thought Stan was actually right and that Justice would be on his side.

And sometimes, they cuddled.

(la fin)

(Et rien ne change, il ne change jamais, toujours il reste le même ces jours.)


End file.
